How Mercedes can win review with 'smoking gun' evidence of Verstappen Brazil incident

That Mexican GP note was brought up by Wolff after the flag in Brazil as he tried to make a point.

“Whatever is in the [race] director’s notes, we’re going to accept,” he said. “I’m also OK if the director’s notes are being shredded, and we just race hard, like we did today.

“But if the director’s notes say that you can’t push anybody off the track in Mexico, and then obviously that’s valid here too, and then you’re actually being driven off the track – it’s just not very consistent, to call it that way.

“My discussion with the race director was not broadcast, but my reaction was: we’re clear that we’ll discuss it behind closed doors.”

Masi didn’t accept that there was any inconsistency relative to previous incidents or decisions.

“I’d disagree that it’s inconsistent,” he said. “You have a look at it, and as I’ve said many times before, you judge the incident on its merits, and you have a look at all of it.

“It wasn’t far off a black and white flag, to be brutally honest, for Max.”

“And let’s not forget, we have the overall ‘let them race’ principles. Looking at it all, with all of the angles that we had available, that philosophy was adopted.”

As to why those principles were applied he added: “I think if you look proximity of the cars, getting into the apex, where it is, nature of the corner. The fact that both cars went off, neither car lost position or anything like that, that was probably the general view of it.”

But wouldn’t Hamilton have made the corner had he not been edged off the road?

“If you sort of keep going a little bit further, they’re give or take about side on side,” said Masi. “So I think for the benefit of everyone, it was ‘let them race’ – so let them race.”

Intriguingly Masi did admit that he had thought about giving Verstappen a black and white ‘don’t do that again’ warning flag for the incident.

“I did, it certainly came into my mind, and then I sort of looked at it a few more times. And it wasn’t far off a black and white flag, to be brutally honest, for Max.”

Later Verstappen received one for a different incident, excessive weaving in front of Hamilton, shortly before the world champion made his successful pass.

The big talking point of the last few days is that in deciding that no investigation was necessary the stewards were missing one crucial piece of evidence.

The way the onboard camera system works is that only one per car is streamed live back to the broadcast HQ and hence out to the world at large and to race control. The others are operating at all times, but the footage they capture is recorded and logged on the car for later download.

At the crucial moment during the incident the director switched from Verstappen’s front-facing camera to the rear view as Hamilton swept up behind him.

Thus while the race was in progress Masi and the stewards did not have access to the forward-facing view that showed Verstappen’s actions on the steering wheel. However he had already asked for the missing footage.

Could it be a smoking gun?

“Could be, absolutely. Possibly. But no, we didn’t have access to it. And obviously, it’s being downloaded. And once the commercial rights holder supplies it, we’ll have a look.”

That footage finally emerged on Tuesday. It didn’t, as some anticipated, show Verstappen actively changing direction in the middle of the corner and steering towards his rival.

However it did indicate that he was far from the apex and his usual line, and that he appeared to let the car drift out as wide as was necessary to ease Hamilton out of the way.

Was it just a hard but legitimate defence by Verstappen that made for great TV and fell within the ‘let them race’ principles, or was it something that overstepped the boundaries and robbed Hamilton of the chance to complete a clean passing move? Even among experts such as retired drivers views are split.

It was within hours of the footage emerging that Mercedes put out a short statement saying that it had requested a petition to review which, as is well known, requires there to be “a significant and relevant new element is discovered which was unavailable to the parties seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned.”

As noted earlier this is an unusual case in that there was no “decision”, as in an official document noting a penalty or specifying “no further action.”

However, we have it on good authority that an announcement of “no investigation necessary” could formally be deemed a decision by the FIA, thus opening the door for a second look.

Mercedes has first to demonstrate that’s the case, and then the stewards will take the key step of deciding whether the video (and anything else that Mercedes may have gathered) is a “significant and relevant new element.”

They then have to decide whether their initial decision not to investigate still stands and then potentially move onto the next stage of conducting a hearing with the two drivers and the new video as the key piece of evidence.

It’s worth noting that, as part of the judgement in Silverstone that saw Hamilton penalised by 10 seconds, the stewards noted that “car 44 was on a line that did not reach the apex of the corner, with room available to the inside.” It remains to be seen whether that is regarded as any kind of precedent.

The saga will add an extra layer of intrigue as the F1 circus sets up shop in Qatar on Thursday, while talk about rear wings and Hamilton’s impressive straightline speed in Brazil stirred up by Red Bull will also continue.

We have three races to go, and 78 points on offer, including those for fastest laps. Verstappen leads by just 14 at this stage, and should an investigation lead to a time penalty and drop him to third, his advantage will be cut to 11. Meanwhile Mercedes’ current lead of 11 in the constructors’ table could be extended to 17.

As noted earlier, such a retrospective penalty seems unlikely, and there’s not a great history of reviews leading to decisions being changed. However if nothing else it will allow Mercedes to blow off a bit of steam after the fraught Sao Paulo GP.

“The whole weekend went against us,” Wolff said after the flag. “We had a broken part on our rear wing, which we couldn’t look at, couldn’t analyse, failed the test.

“And after, disqualified, very harsh. And then you see on the Red Bull repairs three times in a row on a rear wing whilst being in parc fermé, with no consequence.

“And that’s one thing. And obviously that really peaked with the decision in the race, which was a really strong defence from Max, absolutely an inch over the limit, but he needed to do that to defend.

“And Lewis just managed it even more brilliantly by avoiding the contact and ending the race that way. But that was just over the line – it should have been a five-second penalty at least, and probably Max knew that.

“But just brushing it under the carpet? It’s just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, it’s laughable…”